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[Game On] Natural Selection! Learning curve is still a threat.
Lurk
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
If you're interested in playing Natural Selection, please join the steam group!
If you're new, read the manual
http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/
Natural Selection was and still is the most ambitious total game conversions for Half-Life 1. Pushing the venerable game to the limit, this gem was released on Halloween 2002. 6 years later, the game is still fun and actually has aged fairly well. The game is getting a full stand-alone sequel expected to release in the next year or two.
The gist of NS is that it is a FPS-RTS hybrid that set in the conflict between the Kharaa (Aliens) and the Frontiersmen (Marines). Each side is unlike the other and the asymmetry is fairly well balanced. The marines have a commander who plays the game from an RTS perspective. He places structures, researches new technology, gives out equipment and most importantly, guides the marine strategy. Unlike the marines, who are innately a team based faction, the aliens are very individualistic. All the resources gained from controlling nodes on the map are directly given to the commander of the marines but the aliens have it split amongst the whole team. Basically, the teams play completely differently and it’s awesome.
The problem is that it’s a declining game and this is where you, yes you, come in. If you are interested to relive some nostalgia, post in this thread and we could find a empty server to play this game.
Shamless theft from wikipedia:
Classic is the original Natural Selection game, mixing action and strategy elements.
In this mode, one member of the marine team must enter the "command chair" to lead the team. From here, he can purchase upgrades, issue movement orders and drop supplies - all from an overhead perspective, as in many RTS games. The commander can also place buildings, although these are inactive until built by players in the field. The role is somewhat similar to the Intelligence Officer of Global Operations in that it is provided an overview of the map, though the ability to place objects and control is much more extensive. A similar 'commander' mode can also be seen in Battlefield 2 and the Empires modification for Half life 2.
The alien team has no defined leader, and so must communicate and co-operate to ensure different roles are fulfilled as needed. They too extend their control by building, to do this they must first gestate into the Gorge evolution. Kharaa "Hive Sight" reveals teammates through the walls and structures of the map, this was originally their answer to the commander with his top-down overview of the game. However in later versions both teams have gained substantial advantage from the addition of a map hotkey. This overlays the whole level, showing teammates and friendly structures; plus enemies and structures currently in view of comrades, and areas under attack.
The aliens start with one active hive, randomly chosen from the 3 hive spots of the map. Active hives heal damaged aliens and respawn dead players. Marines initially spawn in a set location on the map, and after that spawn from Infantry Portals, which can be built in a set radius of the Command Chair. Healing and ammunition can be dropped by the commander in 'packs' (at a cost) or obtained free from an Armoury.
The teams compete for territory, and critically for the resources ('res') it offers. The currency for both sides, resources are obtained by building resource towers to tap the nozzles sited around the map. This is another area where the teams have a key difference - while marines draw on a common pool of resources, each alien accumulates a personal store. This further increases the requirement for teamwork on the alien side, to achieve the right balance of hives, lifeforms, resource towers and chambers.
The game ends when one side has destroyed the other's ability to survive. For the Frontiersmen (marine) side, this usually entails destroying all alien hives, ensuring no further alien players may respawn, and then hunting the rest down. For the Kharaa (alien) side, winning requires destroying all marine "Infantry Portals", ensuring that they do not respawn, and then eliminating the rest of the marines. Other possibilities exist such as destroying the command chair, or destroying all finished hives, and killing the whole alien team before the remaining hive is fully grown.
Game duration has varied through the game's development. In v1, games were slower and often measured in hours. One of the stated aims of v2 was to address this, by introducing a broad range of changes to abilities, structures, etc. In current releases (v3), a typical game lasts 15-30 minutes, but can run over an hour, with both sides vying for control over strategically important Hive Rooms and Resource Nodes.
The stark asymmetry between the two sides makes "balancing" Natural Selection a difficult and perpetually contentious issue. Almost every release includes some balance changes, most via tweaking of numerical values - e.g. damage inflicted by a certain attack, or time taken to complete a certain building. The difficulty of balancing the game is complicated by the need to address varying levels of skill and numbers of players. Competitive games are normally played 6v6, whereas it is not uncommon for public Internet servers to have 20 slots (allowing 10v10) or more. Skill is more difficult to quantify, but one can regularly observe members of top clans achieving high kill:death ratios against experienced non-competitive players.
Pictures!
Lurk on
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Whatever happened to the sequel? I know the took it off the Source engine but I haven't heard much else about it
/REINSTALL
Sorry, that was my NS forumer crawling back out.
Combat still sucks.
They're still working on the sequel - they have a tech demo video up, all using placeholder art. They also do regular blog updates on their progress.
I would love to play this again. NS is up there with TF2, as far as I'm concerned.
EDIT: Lurk, make sure you put pretty map pictures in the OP. The maps this mod made were absolutely wonderful. Such a creative and talented community around this mod.
EDIT EDIT: Here's that NS2 tech demo vid:
Oh, and did anyone ever find out what the BUS was?
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/PANS
Pictures added! It is really hard to find screenshots of the game now : (
Anyway, given the moderate time commitment the non-combat games ask, and the wildly disparate levels of player skill usually led to one team of experienced players (huzzah for clans) stomping all over some newer players, or alternately marines/commanders throwing away their resources trying to figure out what do led to much team-hating frustration. There was the occasional good public game, but they were few and far between. I always had fun in combat mode though, it was a fun alternative to the standard FPS deathmatches available at the time. I'm sure by now it's fairly solid and polished and happy funtime, but that initial impression probably scared off a lot of folks. I know I never really got into the standard play mode.
I don't really know what you're talking about. NS was one of the biggest mods around when it was active, from what I remember. Activity reports had it sitting pretty damn high up.
I was Testament back on the NS forums, which Tycho may or may not recognize.
Yeah I already knew that; the avatar gave you away.
EDIT: Know what? Downloading Half-Life.
Joined the group now, depending on if it is beer night tonight I might/might not be able to play.
Or flying around and killing, or teleporting and slashing.
Personally I preferred aliens, I was a pretty good Fade.
http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoll3_maMCA&eurl=http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/
But I might try it again if you guys play.
This is neat as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHZ1SFsOvR8&eurl=http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=76506&page=2
No. Mods rely on the engine, not the game content. HL:S runs on Source, HL1 mods run on the HL1 engine.
Okay, well thanks anyways.
Once you figured out the strategy of just rushing their hives and building teleports/sieges asap the game got kind of cheap though. I think that was the strategy anyway.. I cant remember.
Resident 8bitdo expert.
Resident hybrid/flap cover expert.
Fuck fades!
That said, downloading.
Edit: Okay that video on page 1 of NS2 is awesome. Can't wait.
Wish I knew where the power cable for my old external HD is, I have the installer sitting on it. :x
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